REVIEWS
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1990.tb01848.x |
| Published date | 01 November 1990 |
| Date | 01 November 1990 |
REVIEWS
Trevor
Locke,
New Approaches
to
Crime in
the
199Os,
Longman, l990,308pp, pb E19.95.
It’s a great pity that Trevor Locke, NACRO’s policy development officer, did not start
this book with the last chapter. It is here that he sets out his (and NACRO’s) often radical
and always thought-provoking crime prevention strategies for the 1990s. The plans include
avoidance, wherever possible, of the criminal justice system, which is seen as crime-
promoting rather than preventive. They also propose
full
cooperation between all those
statutory and voluntary agencies involved in any aspect of crime control and prevention
to be coordinated by a Crime Response Commission.
The author’s brief account of these strategies cries out for a full, detailed discussion
both of the implications for practitioners and policy makers and of the theoretical approaches
from which they have been developed. Instead Locke gives us in the
243
preceding pages
an arid and, at times, pedestrian account of ‘the way in which management of crime can
succeed by utilising a strategic approach.
’
My own constructivist orientation makes me
highly sceptical of the notion that crime can somehow be ‘managed,’ if not out of existence
then in ways that will reduce and control ‘the problem.’ I
am
equally sceptical of an approach
to social behaviour which seems to assume that changes can be achieved by thumping
out a battery of key-words such as planning
-
strategy
-
policy
-
organisation
-
coordination
-
cooperation
-
partnership
-
consortium and displaying a succession of
diagrams and flow-charts (eg purpose
-
goals
-
aims
-
objectives
-
targets). If the
book is beginning to appear like an instruction manual produced by marketing consultants
to improve the operational techniques of middle-management, then I have probably
succeeded in capturing the essence of Locke’s style.
To be fair to the author, however, he does at times attempt to put some (but not enough)
distance between himself and the performance indicator approach of those American
criminologists who seem to spend their time competing to produce the most accurate
computer simulation of what they call ‘criminal justice systems.
’
Moreover, Locke cannot
be faulted for seeking to break down the barriers between different social and criminal
justice agencies and persuade ‘the managers’ to emerge from their encapsulated world
and recognise the interrelationship of different causal factors in the production of crime
or, for that matter, any other social behaviour. However, he might have produced a more
convincing and more stimulating book if he had been able to describe projects or programmes
where the strategic approach had been successful in achieving its operational objectives.
It seems astonishing, therefore, that the French approach to crime prevention which has
had some considerable success as an exercise in mobilising and uniting disparate agencies
and individuals, receives no mention at all. This is perhaps because Locke seems preoccupied
with North America with only passing mentions of European countries. A more likely
explanation, however, is that the success of the French approach owes more to the flair
and imagination of politicians and those working directly with young people than to any
management concepts. Here the organisational structures are facilitative rather than directive.
The real danger in the strategic planning approach lies in its tendency to use key-words
and flow charts as a substitute for any creative thinking or dialogue about the nature and
causes of social behaviour. Theory in this scheme is enclosed in a little box and connected
by arrows
to
policies and objectives. In place of concepts Locke gives us pious, if well-
meaning, exhortations for everyone to work together to make the world a better place.
This at times leads to some of the most naive proposals I have ever seen in a serious
criminology book, such as the suggestion that, before they impose a heavy sentence,
magistrates should be certain of ‘a reliably predictable relationship between sentencing
and the incidence of that offence’ (p
158)
and that ‘monitoring’ and ‘research’ should
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